“I’m a writer trying to figure out what it takes to be a good person in the world. I want to show the world that life is beautiful and horrible and worth it.”
Yup! At my job as a mental health counselor where we assess people, if we start detecting hints of what we think might be ADHD, it’s actually something my supervisor trained me to do, to just ask “So when that sort of thing happens, do you ever drink coffee or soda to calm down?” or “Does coffee actually help you wake up, or does it just not do anything?” because it’s such a commonly known fact about ADHD for people in the mental health field.
One of the prevailing theories explaining ADHD is that it’s caused by a lack of certain neurotransmitters, specifically norepinephrine and serotonin. Everybody has a background level of these neurotransmitters, and when they see or do something novel or interesting, those neurotransmitters increase, and then decrease back down to normal levels. Because people with ADHD have less of these than they should, they are constantly looking for something new and interesting to give them that jolt back to normal levels. That’s why they’re so easily distracted and why they hyperfocus on things that interest them.
Stimulant drugs, like caffeine, cause your brain to make more of those neurotransmitters. So while neurotypical people might get a buzz off caffeine, people with ADHD just get bumped up closer to normal levels, and so, if anything, feel calmer. That’s why they prescribe what are basically amphetamines as treatment for ADHD and why ADHD meds are so bad for people who don’t have ADHD.
viewing queer identities as “this is the label that makes me happy and feels most accurate now” rather than “this is who I am, was, and always will be” will definitely take the pressure off, friends. changing your mind is proof that you have one.
The Lincoln Assassination is really just wild if you think about it for a moment. The younger brother of one of the most famous actors in the country- himself a famous actor and heartthrob in his own right- killed the President in a theatre and yelled “Sic semper tyrannis,” a line often associated with Brutus, a character that his brother had famously played.
Like, imagine if Liam Hemsworth killed the Prime Minister of Australia at a red carpet movie premiere or something and yelled “I went for the head,” and Chris had to leave the Avengers press tour to tell everyone, “I swear I had nothing to do with this.” Imagine how weird that would be.
…a whole history major and yet this post is the first time I’ve fully appreciated the weirdness of the Lincoln assassination
Thinkin’ about how as a kid I was afraid to sleep alone in my room bc I thought a ghost lived in my closet so every night I’d wake up and move into my parents room to sleep on the itchy wool rug on the floor. It was a bit under their bed and I wanted to lie on it perfectly so I’d also be a bit under the bed.
But I Also loved to eat ice cubes so while I was up in the dead of the night anyway I’d go grab an ice cube from the freezer.
And then I’d sneak into their room and lie down and start crunching on my ice cube, and without fail my dad would wake up and be like “are you REALLY eating ICE in here at 3 AM , AGAIN”
Then I’d swallow the whole ice cube really fast.
Anyway any time I think I’m ready for kids I think about losing sleep every night because there’s an 80 pound sentient creature halfway under my bed just. Eating ice
[id: tweet by buffalocialism reading “if you have so many prisoners that you have to deny them the right to vote because they would significantly impact election results, the main substantive problem is that you live in a police state”]
